Music

Here’s the thing about A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, produced by Phil “Wall of Sound” Spector back in 1963. Some holiday music has a seasonal expiration date. This is different. It’s slammin’ R&B oldies for all 365 days of the calendar.

Darkness will fall on you this fall and winter, but Thundercat’s bass guitar-led music can help you fight through to the other side. Start with “Them Changes,” a song of pain from this year’s album The Beyond / Where Giants Roam–with an excellent music video dramatizing the struggle.

Our own Mona Lee caught up with Thundercat outside the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle for some good old fashioned street modeling. We appreciate his way of dressing something like a couch potato samurai. Have you ever considereda wintersandalwith abomber jacket? We are, now.

Mona’s a writer at Nordstrom but we think you will agree, extremely nice with a camera.

Here we have one way to dress like Mr. OVO, the best fall dresser at the intersection of music & menswear–and the only person alive who can give Reggie Jackson a run for his money with the nickname “Mr. October.” Basically the perfect-for-October outfit we’re endorsing here is about three Ts: topcoat, track pants and Timberlands.

The grid above is a guide. But by all means, do you. Pick whichever long coat, hoodie, tapered pants and work boots fit your fancy. You can’t miss so long as you make sure everything is shades of gray, black, white, off-white or navy–literally any combination. But the Timberlands, we prefer in wheat.

To honor the Canadian-ness of Drake, the sweats and coat above are by Canadian companies. It did occur to us, though, that this Paul Smith coat would also be rock solid in the same outfit.

Let us officially end the season with a ceremonial last blast of “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times).” And while it plays, let’s fondly remember how its steel drums and soulful vocals soundtracked all our parties and BBQs.

It’s fall, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have one last go-round with the song of the summer, right?

Why is Rob Lowe smiling? Well, he’s 30-plus years into showbiz as a dramatic and comedic actor and nobody’s sick of him yet. He’s got twelve racks sitting pretty on his wrist. And he’s about to throw a perfect spiral.

But besides all that: Rob Lowe is smiling because he’s super stoked on his PROFILE skincare line. Far from a vanity project, PROFILE is a sincere labor of love. And it’s available exclusively at Nordstrom.

Mr. Lowe is literally stoked, as his character Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation would say. On the phone he was chipper and came off like he had all the time in the world to chat (he did not; he was literally in the middle of filming his new TV show, The Grinder).

Read more below about Lowe’s favorite Chris Traeger line, which XM Radio station he plays while chillaxing in his pool—and why he’s 51 but looks 36.

While staring at color-changing leaves, we recommend zoning out to this trippy music mix created by Creatures of the Wind–one of the brands we sell in our new SPACE shop. That would be the new venture by our director of creative projects Olivia Kim, to showcase emerging and advanced designers.

SPACE is womenswear-only and we’re feeling it hard for inspiration and gifting.

The mix was used in Creatures of the Wind’s FW 15 runway show last February, where the collection (which we now sell) was inspired by American psychedelic rock.

Ready for a shot of ’90s hip-hop culture–aka one of the key retro influences in today’s menswear? Check the early rap journalism of Dao-Yi Chow, now half of the design team with Maxwell Osborne of the CFDA award-winning brand Public School.

We’ve been rocking with 100%Vancouverdeejays lately, with our new store opening September 18 in that majestic Pacific Northwest metropolis.

One recent set by Vancouver’s Niña Mendoza gave us life (shout out DayShiftSEA, one mile from Nordstrom HQ in Seattle) and we highly recommend her funky, right-now-meets-1983 mix “Love For Free,” promoting her September 10 show with Dâm-Funk. It’s been sustaining us throughout the week.

Stream the mix below and download it here so you don’t kill your data while you’re in the gym. Hit READ MORE for the track list and Vancouver-focused Q&A.

Vancouver is still ruling our lives as we anticipate our new store opening September 18 in that gorgeous Canadian city.

To get properly psyched up, we’ve been bumping beats from 1080p Collection nonstop, 1080p being the label run in Vancouver by one of our heroes Richard MacFarlane–who maintains a frequency of albums and quality of music which makes other labels look lazy in comparison.

We asked MacFarlane which 1080p music would be best for three situations: a party, feeling sad and listening while at work.

For partying, MacFarlane suggested Vancouver’s own Project Pablo–whose hazy house music soundtracks some excellent Tech Decking in the video below for “Movin’ Out”:

Read on for MacFarlane’s commentary. Now please excuse us while we turn up the volume and think Vancouver thoughts about skateboarding, wildlife and islands.

Did you know Dao-Yi Chow, who co-runs the CFDA-winning brand Public School with Maxwell Osborne, is a writer and onetime rap journalist? It’s true. He confirmed it when we asked him recently at the inaugural New York Fashion Week: Men’s.

Chow used to contribute to The Flavor back in the day, a “real hip-hop magazine” based in Seattle in the mid-1990s. Chow went by Durwin Chow GNS, “graffiti non-stop,” and lived in New York. Most Flavor writers back then contributed their stories by fax machine.

Fun fact: Organized Konfusion’s Pharoahe Monch would one day ghostwrite for Diddy, who would eventually employ Chow and Osborne as designers at his clothing brand Sean John–before Public School became one of the hottest brands in menswear.